The human papilloma virus (HPV) is a spherical DNA virus which is human-human transmissible[1]. Currently, scientists have successfully separated more than 130 species of HPV subtypes, each of which has a different clinical manifestation form. Generally, an HPV infection causes proliferation of squamous epithelial cells on a genital organ, an anus, pharynx oralis and esophageal mucosa, which are manifested as common warts, plane warts, plantar wart and the like. A serious HPV infection even can cause malignant tumors, including vulvar cancer, penile neoplasms, anal carcinoma, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, cervical cancer, rectal cancer, oral cancer, tonsil cancer and the like.
In 1995, it was found in the research data of epidemiology provided by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that, high-risk HPV16 and HPV18 were main causes of female cervical cancers and were extremely infectious[2]. In China, almost all of the cervical cancers are related to the infection of HPV[3].
According to statistics of global venereal diseases, genital warts caused by HPV infection account for 15-20%. Moreover, the result of an investigation related to the epidemic situation of HPV as provided by the USA national health and nutrition research subject in 2003-2004 showed that, the total infection rate of HPV in a genital tract of a woman aged from 14 to 59 is 26.8%[4-5].
A method currently used for treating HPV clinical symptoms includes:
(1) A physical therapy aimed to remove a tumor body visible to the naked eye and a subclinical infection, such as a laser, microwave, surgical excision (gynecological LEEP knife, etc.), photodynamic therapy and the like. The physical therapy is mainly directed to a tumor caused by viruses, rather than eradication of viruses at the source;
(2) A drug therapy, wherein currently there is no antiviral drug specific to the virus, and thus generally a cytotoxic drug (including 0.5% of podophyllotoxin tincture, 50% of trichloroacetic acid, fluorouracil ointment, and the like) is used clinically for adjuvant therapy. Podophyllin and the like have a certain corrosivity, and thus it needs to protect surrounding healthy tissues from them, otherwise it is easy to cause implantation of surrounding healthy tissues; and since the aforementioned drugs have strong toxicity and cannot radically cure HPV, the possibility of recrudescence is very large;
(3) An immunization therapy directed to reducing recrudescence and rapid focus clearance, including interferons, interleukins, thymosins, transfer factors, BCG vaccines, isotretinoin, autovaccines and the like, with disadvantages of high price, poor stability, and complex treatment procedure; and
(4) Therapeutic vaccines: the prophylactic anti-HPV vaccines only include Gardasil available from Merck and Cervarix available from GlaxoSmithKline; however, existing anti-HPV vaccines still have certain disadvantages, such as being only directed to certain virus subtypes, being expensive, having a not wide enough range of target population (females aged 13-26), having a short effective immune period (an effective time of 3-5 years), and the like, which hinder the effective promotion of current vaccines[6].
Paracetamol is a commonly-used antipyretic and pain-relief drug, which is generally used for curing a fever, an arthralgia, a neuralgia, a migraine and a cancer pain, and for relieving pains after surgery. It was found by the research group during screening of antiviral drugs that, the paracetamol had a relatively strong anti-HPV16 activity. Based on this research results, we prepared a series of pharmaceutical preparations containing paracetamol, and they were used in treatment of HPV16. As compared with the previously used treating method, the invention provides a pharmaceutical preparation containing paracetamol, which has advantages such as being simply prepared, having a low production cost, having a significant anti-HPV effect, and the like. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to develop them into a clinical medicine for treating HPV.